Powder Miner

Finally, finally, Eulalia was healed enough to pull herself to her feet, albeit still bleeding heavily. Wiping some of it off of her face with a sleeve (for the blood from the wound on her chest had reached it while she was lying there bleeding for agonizing minutes), Eulalia scowled rather intensely. "What a terrible pain in the ass. I take it back, I'm not going to feel bad about it when I start taking you lot out." Unfortunately, there was not much that she could really do, here -- everything that would have been vulnerable to her magic was quite done for, leaving only a magical wisp of fire that she suspected she would do very little do. All that was left was for her to grumble and apply some medicine to herself. Eulalia vulneraries herself.

Bend made to say something as Lotus called him over, but he was plenty capable of recognizing a finger to the lips, at least, so the black ant just shrugged and did his best to silently dance in wooden armor instead -- not easy, though the way he rubbed his thumb along one of two symbols of magic on his flute indicated that he was still using it for some form of magic anyhow. Lotus is refreshed! Lotus herself made something of a judgement call, deciding that the quieter one of the two non-armored bugs was probably the smarter of the two -- in any ways, an astute observation. And, accordingly, an arrow flew. Lotus attacks Shinywings! Perhaps unfortunately for Lotus, though, Shinywings wasn't just the more tactical of the two -- he was the keener of the two Marauder bosses. A glance to the side meant that unlike so many others, Shinywings caught sight of Lotus, eyes widening and body starting to duck as he noticed the fact that her longbow was outstretched and aimed at him. Things probably seemed to be in slow motion to the two of them as the fate of her shot was for a long moment unclear -- but then it skated just barely over the beetle's head, two of the vanes on the arrow actually passing through his hair. He stood there, out of range to reply, and mostly just looked rather perturbed. Map Notes (and Status below) EXP: 22/100

Lizaveta let out a little laugh as she watched Darcy rave and rant and try to fight back. Behind her mask, though it couldn't be seen, her grin took on a little bit of a sadistic quality. "You still don't get it, do you, King Darcy? You're done. You're dead. Your disgusting reign is finally going to come to an end here. Your reinforcements can't make it in --good job, Ficus, and Knight, Phoenix, Mink!--, you yourself are being struck down piece by piece, and there are no signs of anything on the horizon to change that. Don't you understand? Not only is your reign going to come to an end here, you are going to come to an end here, and it will be a fitting punishment for such a vile being as yourself. Finally, the people of Ulux can have your oppressive weight lifted off of their shoulders!" She punctuated her little speech with a blast of wind. E4, Wind Darcy

Satomi ate one of the Royalberry Cookies (for +1 ESS), with an expression that was remarkably dour the entire time for somebody who was currently in the process of eating a delicious cookie. She was being exceptionally stubborn, at that moment — Kusuke’s statement that stopping to occasionally take some “little things” in was one that probably everyone would find, but Satomi was refusing to take that piece of advice in, or at least trying to. After all, he didn’t understand — it was her Duty that she was dealing with here, she couldn’t slow down. Still, though, it wasn’t actually like she had much of a choice in the matter, there not being any lurking apocalyptic threats she had a clear and in-plain-sight way of dealing with right now, so she just adopted an expression that was, in fact, something of a sulk and stomped her way over to Leo. Eventually, she cleared her throat a little awkwardly. ”I suppose that I might want to go deal with that clocktower, since little else worthwhile is presenting itself... however I will need you to remind me of what this issue with the clocktower entailed? I am afraid that the details slipped my mind.” Actually, she’d never seen them at all, because she’d never read the bulletin board. She’d have had to shove her face right against it to reas the text on it, after all, so... she kind of... didn’t.

Slowly, hesitantly, one at a time, Stretch opened his eyes. It... didn’t seem like he’d been beaten up again. He also hadn’t had any really big holes blasted in him. Actually, it didn’t seem like him and the really small magic girl had been attacked at all this time around. Well... that was good, then! He really hadn’t actually wanted to get hurt like that again, he really really hadn’t, even if he’d been willing to stand in front of the good zombie lady to make sure that she didn’t get hurt like she had been hurt again. But did he have to do it again? Stretch looked around at the state of the battle, and his eyebrows raised. Actually, they really raised, far into what would be his hairline if he had any, since he wasn’t really beholden to normal limits, after all. ”Oh, uh. Yeah, okay. Uhhhhhhhh, hhhhhhhh, red-and-blue-guy-man! You still don’t really look super okay so I’m gonna try to help make you more okay with more magic juice, okay!” Having declared this, Stretch ran up to Spider-Man and dumped another load of bright blue healing magic into him, now that the softening and all had probably worn off. Stretch uses Diamond Magic Juice again, healing Spiderman for 2d4+SYN damage and lowering his RES by two!

Nader looked askew at Proditor for a moment. ”I don’t think you quite understand what’s going on, Proditor. I’m not going to be fighting him. No, it’s...” Nader sighed. ”just solving multiple problems. It’s best for everyone if you step out of the way.” He looked up at Asgore, now, and he get his teeth grit as much of his being instinctively recoiled from just what he was doing. ”Make it quick. Before my mind changes itself.”

Nader, often, remembered his childhood. He had not lived in one of the big cities, and he'd only seen electricity two times by the age of 13, when it finally came to the desert city of Al-Takbir, the city that his village laid ten miles from the outskirts of. Instead, what young Nader Jabal had known were simple things -- the dunes. Watching his father diligently working under some rich city man's car, making just enough to be alright without being luxurious. Learning, step by step, to do some of the same things, though he never truly worked on a car. Eating with his family. And his few years of grammar school, of course, including how he nearly got kicked out for being a hellion. He had been a little bastard, there had been no doubt about that -- delighting in cruel tricks, and scampering away whenever the consequences came. But even that, he reflected, still had an idyllic quality to it. War had always been on the horizon, fought by more and more people far away in Forenia's plains and mountains and jungles, but Nader had not understood it, had not the experience to understand what it meant for everyone around it. Oppression had always been there, too, but he hadn't recognized the fear and worry in the movements everyone made, the way they sometimes hunched down as if trying to avoid some invisible gaze. And then one day, when he was 17, he suddenly knew all of it, but he did not understand it. The threats of the world, of Forenia, of Moskurg went from out of sight to overwhelming, a crushing weight that manifested in the form of the Spectre, ever-watching, ever-threatening, ever-waiting for a slip-up so that he could disappear into the mysterious place wherever everyone who slipped up went. From then on, the air was always suffocating, and unawareness always waiting with a dagger aimed to slit the throat. He thought about the times before that all-consuming weight often, and he realized that there was something about childhood that was special, unique, even if it didn't always seem that everyone felt quite the same way. It was the time before the world closed in. Nader often remembered his brother, too. Nader had never treated him kindly. He had always been a big brother bully, but his younger brother's moments of resentment, though certainly not nonexistent, only ever seemed to be temporary. He reflected that that was miraculous -- Nader had not deserved the admiration he was often seen with. A mere couple of months before the world had closed in on Nader, men had come to his family's house. There was fighting, at first, his father yelling and shouting and threatening, but eventually going dead silent instead. The war with Arstotzka, the men explained, was not going well. The homeland was in danger, mortal danger, for the soulless Arstotzkans would wipe it all away. They needed people to fight for them. Nader understood by this age, of course, exactly what was going on. A draft... and still a coward, he barely even hesitating before blurting out that he could be otherwise useful. He had learned mechanical skills from his father, you see, he was skilled... was there any need to have him fight and die on the front lines? Surely, it would be a waste. His brother, 14 years old and never as mechanically-inclined, had not been so lucky. He sent letters at first, and he sent them in pairs. One to their parents in their little village outside Al-Takbir, and one to the capital of Moskurg City, addressed right to the Engineering Bureau that Nader had placed him right in. Despite the fear in every waking moment, Nader always managed to find the room to read these letters, at least sooner or later (it took days, sometimes, but they never went unread). Month by month, his letters came in, sometimes cheerful, detailing the little absurdities of war and of living out with a bunch of other men also often confused as to what in Hell they were going to be doing next. Sometimes, they were exhausted, detailing the grueling battles in trenches, the death all around him. And, of course, like so many thousands of letters in that war, they eventually stopped coming. It had been three years later --1932-- and though Nader never learned what happened, he knew. He had decided two things, eventually, in a quiet moment he fled Moskurg at the end of the war. First, he was tired of fleeing. Again, and again, and again he had fled. He had left his brother to die, he had missed the revolution in Forenia. He decided that he had to face the diabolical threats of the world head-on. And second, of course... he decided that children should not die. Children should not be shot. Even teenagers were too young for that. It wasn't right, not for people who were still innocent. The Horsekiller is such an old weapon that it had essentially become a core part of Moskurg culture. Created sometime shortly before the end of the British colonial rule over Forenia in 1900, the weapon has always been comical in terms of its load -- a .60 caliber bullet, a reflection of the reckless Moskurg appreciation for strength and overkill more than a practical decision. The weapon on Nader's left arm was the fourth iteration of the Horsekiller: the second iteration had been in 1912, a slight modernization and improvement of accuracy. The third had been in 1935, a strange system based on the rails of his gun to make it into a semi-automatic weapon, shortly before he used it to blast his way out of an attempted engineer execution at the Battle of the Embassy. The fourth had been in Australia, shortly after entering into this whole multi-world quest. It had been a strong modernization, using much more powerful modern powder, and rebuilding many parts of the gun to survive the increased blasts. But at its heart his Horsekiller was the same weapon, a gun designed to deal maximum, ludicrous damage wherever it hit. The original version could kill a horse in one shot, almost no matter where it hit, and the upgraded version had blown heavily armored alien monstrosities designed to tear tanks apart into pieces. And one of these bullets had just ripped through the small, frail body of a twelve-year old child. There had often been a way that Nader liked to refer to the way that he thought: He "wasn't ill, but he wasn't well." After all, it had seemed obvious to him that he wasn't crazy -- he was only right, becuase he always really knew that these things were out there, were out to kill him, were out to kill everyone that they couldn't control. And indeed he'd been proven correct multiple times. The Nazis had loomed, seeking to control the world. Rebel forces in the darkness sought to split his country in two, and to stop him from stopping them. And, so long ago, the traitorous coward King of Moskurg and psychopathic Leader of Arstotzka had decided together to end the war by putting themselves above all others, and putting victims in the way to ensure it stayed that way. The soldiers who had fought in the war. The officers. The intelligence agencies. The engineers -- him. He'd seen it coming, of course, and he'd taken a suit of Tiger Armor and a pair of Horsekillers, and locked himself into a tool closet (something only a Forenian embassy would have). In that closet he modified the Tiger Armor to place the Horsekillers upon his arms -- the original pieces of the Rabid Tiger Armor that he now wore. But he also stayed in that closet for three weeks, unwilling to leave for even an instant lest the Arstotzkan assassins surely waiting take the opportunity to pounce and kill him. He sat in a closet for three weeks, his own filth piling up, a sea of muck and despair inhabiting that closet but the fear so intense that he still would not leave. Only his fellow engineers saved his life -- opening the door and dodging gunfire to throw in food, throw in drinks, toss in bucketfuls of water to deal with the worst of the mess. They'd saved him from a horrific fate, his self-inflicted utter degradation, as he shot at them, and no matter how right he was, that wasn't something that people who were well in the head did. But he'd always insisted that he wasn't ill, wasn't crazy. He'd not known what he was, but damn it, it wasn't insanity! But now, he'd just shot and killed somebody who could never deserve it, hadn't he? A child. A child. Somebody who was young, who shouldn't have been here in the first place, who should have been allowed to live innocently for several years yet. It was an opportunity many like his little brother hadn't had... and now he'd taken that from her, too, with overwhelming, unnecessary, vicious force. Explanations scrambled for his mind -- a devil did it, it was just bad luck, the King somehow used magic to curse him into shooting her instead... but, for once, these explanations failed to find any purchase scrabbling along the folds of his brain. He had aimed his gun, he had pulled the trigger, and that bullet had blown much of her torso out of her back. He was ill. He was beyond ill. Whatever he was, whatever the thing plaguing at his head was that caused every corner to be filled with threats, caused the world to close in on him, whatever it was that made him feel innumerable gazes from other dimensions bearing down hotly on him, whatever it was that had terrorized him with the Spectre... it had now driven him to the point of killing a little girl. And if he would do this thing, this one thing that he had told himself should never happen in any just world, what else would he do? Would he turn around one day and murder the space alien for fear of its powers? Would he take off the head of whoever slighted him at the wrong time. It was because he felt detached, dissociated from himself, viewing the situation as if a third party, that his conclusion was firm: he did not know what else he was capable of. "...I'm too far gone." It was not an option to continue like this, or Lucine would only be the first. His gauntleted hands went up towards his head, and began to scrabble at the edges of his helmet. Nauseating, gut-curdling spirals of fear went through him at what he was going to do despite his state of dissociation, and he could hear himself breathing heavily, hear the sound of his fingers scraping repeatedly across his mask and helmet, looking for and failing to find the hooks that held his mask onto his helmet for several moments -- Nader realized that he was trembling too heavily to easily manage the motion. Eventually, though, he pulled them away in jerky and hesitant motions, revealing his head for the first time this entire journey. And there was nothing wrong with his face, really: no disfigurations, no huge scar. There was only olive skin, black hair (normally short, but mussed up and an inch or two longer in the time he had spent traveling worlds), and the scraggly beginnings of a beard, one coming about because of a month of not shaving rather than any intentional effort. Brown eyes looked down at Lucine for several long moments, and then up at Asgore, and the man finally revealing himself from his armor said only four words. "You need seven, right?"

Nader watched Asgore slowly move away from Lucine, and he allowed him to do so, some level of tension drained from him as well. Then, Nader had something to say, staring directly at Asgore as he did. ”Ah, good. Thank you from moving away from the kid. You know... I saw that little display you put up. I know what you did and the killing and the SOULs and of course the experiments for revenge in time and determination and karma and even a broken king is still a king and we won’t die so LET’S BEGIN!” The last words were a roar, a half a second before another loud, loud BOOM filled the enclosed space. Nader fires the Horsekiller at Asgore, putting out 5d6+3+DEX+STR damage!

All of a sudden, quite a few things happened at once, a bewildering array of new events and people. The strange beings unleashed another round of attacks — and suddenly, Nader felt himself moved, as a large being shoved him out of the way, leaving the armored man reeling, too overwhelmed to make much sense of the situation. He stared wide-eyed under his mask as the large newcomer seemed to just cause the incomprehensible beings to go away by speaking, and he stared for a long moment. ...one of the new people was Lucine, he could see that, but the other one... a monster, he could see, extremely large and furry, with huge horns ascending from his head. And between them... there sat... a crown. ”OH FUCK!” Nader twitched as he turned the entire rest of his body around towards Asgore, a motion so sudden and violent that he managed to pull the trigger by accident, a bullet bouncing around the hallway, something that caused Nader to cringe so violently that the flinch could be seen despite his armor. But he recovered, and pointed one finger at Asgore, and with it one ludicrously overgunmed arm. ”Lucine, watch out! That’s him!” His tone darkened, took on a dangerous quality. ”The King.” There was a significance in his voice about that word — as if it were a vicious curse. ”Lucine, you need to step away from him.” Nader raised his other arm, pointing them both at Asgore and putting his hands on the levers on his armor that controlled his big guns. ”That’s right, isn’t it. Confirm that for me, wont you?”

Although he'd been willing to let out shouts and grunts, the armored bug on the receiving end of so many assaults still didn't evidently see fit to respond with words, whether that be through inability or simply through unwillingness to speak, not even as a massive bird began to run him down. Ebon Knight attacks "Elite" Plunderer B! The bug was an impressively stoic one, to be sure, even at the end -- he let out another loud grunt as the lance made impact, and for a moment he stayed on his feet despite the powerful impact... but after a few seconds, he toppled backwards into the grass without another sound. "Dignified in my eyes, friend... your long battle is over!" "Elite" Plunderer B is dead! Map Notes Status EXP: 20/100

Nader stared half-uncomprehendingly at the beings -- the attacks had appeared to do gouts of damage to at least one of them, not to mention that the mind ability of the psychic space alien appeared to have been viciously effective as well... but he could tell no visible difference in the shifting, terrifying things afterwards. He supposed that he just had to hope that his bullets mattered, and dig in and fight the damned things. The attack that they had --faces, from the damned ground-- hadn't been used on him yet, and weren't yet too much of a problem, but that was a risk that he could not take. So, he unslung the scoped rifle from his back and took another few shots, rapidly squeezing the trigger. Nader uses the Mk. 3 Osprey on Memoryhead 1, dealing 3d6+DEX damage(?) and forcing an opposed DEX check for enemy dodge abilities to work on it (not that that should be a problem)! Remaining Cooldowns: Akimbo (2 turns) M3 Sorraia (2 turns) Loadout:

"W- WHA- whwha- the- the FUCK IS-- wha-- ff--" Sufficiently terrified by the eldritch beings that his speech lost all coherency, falling apart into stumbled words and slurred syllables, it was probably little surprise to Proditor that Nader reacted the way he did. His words might not have been working... but hopefully his guns would, with the loud bark of gunfire filling the True Lab. One of the sounds was deafening, the distinctive BOOM of the Horsekiller firing a .60 bullet at one of the Memoryheads, while the roar of a machine-gun was paired with it, bullet after bullet spat out as the Sorraia liberally peppered the hallway with smaller bullets -- but a lot of them. The combined force of these weapons sent Nader stepping back once, twice, but right now he didn't seem to care. After all of that, though... a loud crash sounding out from further in the lab. This time, Nader found his voice. "WHAT THE FUCK NOW?" Nader fires the Horsekiller at one Memoryhead, not doing 5d6+3+DEX+STR (from perk) damage to it, and he fires the Sorraia at all three, not doing 1d4+DEX+STR (from perk) damage to each of them! Loadout:

Nader seemed to take a while just absorbing and mulling over the knowledge that he'd seen. "This is becoming something of a large sidetrack, all of this business with DETERMINATION... we know that he ascended into broken godhood, that is just established fact by this point, but he seems to spend a lot of time on this. Perhaps... this is actually related to HOW he attempted to ascend?" Nader took another moment to think, just staring at one of the lab entries, shockingly unaware of the world around him for a while. "He speaks of time travel here... attempting to use raw human willpower to travel through time, somehow... and it didn't quite succeed, it broke and scattered and exploded and spread, but it spread materially, so if he tried to use a SOUL -- if he tried to use himself -- he would scatter as a soul, wouldn't he? He just thought he had to use enough DETERMINATION, at first, right? He said that, earlier. I didn't understand it yet, but he was trying to use DETERMINATION and hoping that the KARMA that he was making would just get drowned out by enough of that. That didn't work. But where did he try to travel to, to become a god? Did he try to travel before all of it, at the very start, to the very end, did he perhaps try to travel outside of it all, recklessly? He... has spoken, more or less, of being in pieces. I think that this makes sense. His method of ascension was trying to travel to a time that was not mortal, but he failed and he exploded thanks to being hit with the KARMA while using humanity... he exploded all over space and time, didn't he? That's what he is talking about. That's what he has been talking about. He's in pieces, that's what this means -- pieces scattered inside and outside of space and time as we perceive them, unable to influence the world directly. But he saw that coming, because he saw the future through seeing through time, through the CORE and through iron will... so he set this up for us beforehand to try to get us to fix this, somehow. But there's that last entry, too. Did he also write that beforehand? Or did he write it after? I am missing something." It was only then, having finished this current bout of contemplation, that Nader stepped back and actually saw the note that Proditor was hovering in the air. It said... 'Behind You.' "OH SHIT FUCK GOD DAMN--" Spitting all over the inside of his mask with panicked curses, Nader lumbered into an about-face, drawing the PAW and the Osprey rifle from the back and extending them in the direction of the opposite wall, pointing no fewer than five guns at the wall in a clumsy tangle of guns held, attached to the sides of his arms, and attached to the underside of the gun attached to the side of the arm. Judging by the futile twitches of his right arm towards his hip, he was actually trying to bring six guns to bear on whatever was behind him, but tragically had to settle for only five.

Walking through the hallway, his head turning left and right to take in the screens mounted on the walls... Nader, of course, had his answers for all of it, and had them almost immediately. His voice was smug, triumphant, except that it wavered with clear confusion at several points before Nader seemed to push himself back into that triumphant state of mind. "Proof, you see? Do you not see? The writing is clear on the wall. It was-- the work came from-- it was a grudge against humans, after all. So, KARMA.. a punishment, of course. They came up with a punishment that they intended to use on humankind to settle for it-- and-- the ascension-- they would use the KARMA to punish humanity but could only do so if they ascended, so that was the plan. It... may have been accidental... initially... but... that's because they were jumping across timelines in order to see it coming to do it." There was a long pause from Nader, now, as even he seemed to either be having a fair amount of difficulty processing some of what he'd apparently seen or to be experiencing some doubt about what he had said. "The child and the other brother... that... it should make sense. It will all work into everything in the end. Just you see. We'll figure it out." Nader picked up his pace, stomping into the Eastern room with an energy that was some mixture of manic and nervous.

Finally, finally, Navin no longer had to spend so much willpower to prevent himself from attacking the damned thing, and like a released bowstring his entire body snapped into a powerful, vicious motion, thrumming with tension and energy. The circulation of power in his arms was full, and there was not a damned thing that was going to stop him from tearing this bastard corpse into tinier and tinier and tinier and tinier pieces -- with a savage roar, a scream that rose from his throat and dominated the space of the room, that continued on for far longer than it would seem to anyone that it should... he leaped at the corpse, pounced, violence in his entire form, in the jerky and eager movements of his limbs that brought him at the monster with a dash. And the violent movements were followed with violent actions. With a kra-koom, it was now an explosion that drowned out all of the sound in the room, paired with a horrific fleshy tearing sound as the blast and thrust of his arm slammed Navin's hand into the stomach of the possessed corpse, its belly exploding outwards in a wave of gore. It was hard to tell if what came next was a mercy to the more squeamish-minded in the group -- the second punch, another roar coming with it, completely obliterated what came out from that, preventing any discrete organs in the corpse's abdominal cavity from... existing anymore. It was a wave of blood and ground meat that splashed to the ground, and with a third, weaker shout, Navin elbowed it in the side of the head for good measure, before stepping back and away, breathing heavily and covering his mouth with his upper arm (the only part of his arms not soaked in blood), a disturbed look glinting in his eyes. And yet, amazingly, the possessed corpse had not been banished, the body still technically intact, the chains wrapping its form (aside from those blown away from Venus) still there, and the deeply malicious presence still radiating at the heroes of the day intensely. Navin uses One-Two Punch, doing 4d6+STR (10)+SYN (11) damage twice!

Isobel let out an airy, dramatic sigh at some of Yukari's words. "Come now, surely at least some of it was amateurish gracefulness, no? Some of us are quite agile." There was a pause as Isobel recalled more or less getting the shit beaten out of her by Marisa, and her faux-smug expression faded a little. And then she recalled the plan that ended with LOTUS getting eaten, and involving her getting into a lot of arguments with fucking Rory. Her expression faded a little more. And then she recalled the chaotic hellhole of a fight that the battle with Reimu had become, involving slapping people and everybody getting hit by a fair amount of stuff. Her expression, by now, had morphed into something of a non-plussed stare into the distance. "...you know what, nevermind." She ate the last bites of her meal a little sullenly. However, one other piece of conversation seemed to perk her right back up, and she turned to Youmu. "Actually... do you mind if I stop by this garden sometime? I'm a professional botanist by trade, and have done quite a bit of very advanced work with gardening and plants, so I could certainly help. And this garden is very beautiful as well as quite possibly magic (if hopefully not in the way of those saplings)... I would have to kick myself for quite a long time if I allowed myself to pass up a potential opportunity like this! I may be willing to share a couple of very pretty seed types I worked on recently, too, if you decide that they would not disrupt the garden. They're poppies that grow in a variety of bright colors, and both heal and help withstand various sorts of things as well, so they're also useful." Having received the information that he'd desired --and with Masako rather handily redirecting Yukari's attention for that matter-- LOTUS seemed to be largely satisfied, so he remained silent as something of a contrast to Isobel's excited babble.

Lizaveta couldn't help but rub her hands together and grin behind her full-face mask. "This is going to feel good, I think. Finally we get to make a real lasting change in the world... we get to bring some justice into it, for once. I've been wanting to rid the world of people like this man for a very, very long time." And she began to advance. G7

Lotus' (justified, given Stardust's typical behavior) exasperation with Stardust did not stop her from continuing the fight, and she raised her bow at one of the two armored Marauders serving as guards for Shinywings and Seeker-of-a-Dignified-Death. Lotus attacks "Elite" Plunderer B! With a brief twang and a thwip a second or so later, the wooden arrow managed to crack the equally wooden chestplate that the Marauder was wearing -- and judging by the deep grunt that followed, it had also pierced enough to do damage. Still, though, Lotus' armored for simply squared his posture once more and held his lance up, standing with unsteady legs and part of his armor barely hanging onto his body, but standing nonetheless. Map Notes Status EXP: 15/100

Lizaveta let out a quiet scoff at Baldur's jab at her. "But Orchid... does this not prove me right? This is the true form of the world under aristocracy, and the kings and (some of) the queens of Purgus merely are the pinnacle of the exploitation and rot. The king of Ria kills and maims, strikes down those who he has decided he has displeased with. The king of Gul steals the bread from the mouths of his subjects for no other reason than to brag that he has it. The rulers of Perus keep their foot on the neck of the world, trying to rule all through murder and fear and despair and poverty. The Queen of Vini is content to sit on what little she can bleed from those of us suffering in Vini, for its problems do not truly matter as long as she can eke a single coin out to raise her position. And Darcy, king of Ulux... he is as clear of a representation of these evils as there ever is. He keeps his kingdom as a land of misery and brothels because he can exploit that. As long as his people suffer, as long as they are desperate, he can reach into it and pluck out another victim to sleep with, with no fear of consequences, no fear of repercussions. This is what kings do -- they place themselves high above those they rule, so that they can seem untouchable to the people of their lands, and then they ruthlessly exploit them. Without fearing consequences, and with malice in their hearts, their people become nothing more than a resource and a set of toys. Look at him, Orchid, and say that I am wrong. I have studied this kind of horror, and I have seen it myself, and now we see it again." She paused, and nodded at Mink. "Taking a relic will not help Ulux. Listening to vanished gods will also not help Ulux. If we want to raise this place from its misery... we can start by getting rid of its oppressors." And she pulled out a tome, glaring at Darcy.

Satomi nodded to herself as the master of these two animals called them, clearly quite pleased with the timely resolution of the situation. "Well, that certainly is convenient -- that would put the whole deal with these pets to rest, yes? Now we can do..." Here Satomi paused, frowning, now forced to confront something she'd earlier mentally remarked on. "What do we do, now? Does anyone know what tasks need to be done here, any other minor errands aside? I'm sure there must be something worth our efforts here. I do not want to be sitting idle again... at least that previous, barren place had something to uncover about it. Is there perhaps a mayor of this town? We could make her or him aware of the threat of Trespassers, if she or he is not aware of that threat, or perhaps offer our assistance if she or he is."

Satomi stood there in rather awkward silence from some time as the rest of the group tended to the 'monster'... only to discover that it was quite literally just a fox and a can of paint. To be honest, she felt distinctly disappointed by the whole thing -- she had been hoping for an opportunity to do her Duty or to show off her skills, or something. Dealing with genuinely just stray animals was really not something she felt was a worthwhile usage of her time. She could be... making defenses, or discovering new technology, or... something! She sighed, then, and crossed her arms. "I suppose that we do not have anything more immediately obvious to tend to, but... is this a good use of our time? I'm sure there are plenty of people who could take care of stray animals, and it is not precisely a task that is suited to a band of armed and highly skilled people. Could we not be... preparing this place against Trespassers in some way, perhaps?"

Nader cast a skeptical eye in Proditor's direction as the psychic space alien stood in front of the door, presumably trying to open it in some way. That skeptical eye turned in the direction of the vending machine when a rather anticlimactic paff signaled the arrival of a box of "popato chisps." (Faintly, Nader was reminded of the poor English of some of the people he'd met back home, back before the unification.) After a moment of silence, Nader shrugged, that motion producing a litany of small clanking sounds. "I can only assume that we are going to be entering that door at a later point, considering that we were actively brought over here by the conspirators. It is the key to ascension, no doubt... but I suppose they want us to see the rest of their story before we get to that point. It's the hallways, then, Proditor. Let's go..." Nader paused for a moment. "Right." And without waiting for Proditor to respond, Nader clanked off down the right pathway.

There's something disturbing me about this whole thing, but... gah, no time to think about it! Eyes on their foes, Bend tapped Pinecone's shoulder as the bee moved out of the grass. "Just a little further out, Pinecone -- I think we wanna be ready for these guys." Recruit Bend refreshes Pinecone! TURN 7 ~ ENEMY PHASE The green-winged beetle let out a long sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose. Fantastic... he had been hoping that the enemy forces would engage, but Shinywings knew Seeker-of-a-Dignified-Death well enough (before he'd taken that name, even) to know that he wouldn't have the patience to chase these bugs all over the grass, especially with why we're here. "Time to move in, I suppose. Cover me." The blonde spider, meanwhile, seemed frankly entirely put out by the total lack of response. After an awkward pause, he speeched at them again. "Death is not to be feared! It is merely a step along the journey that any warrior, even the most powerful and skilled, must take! And it has come time on our paths to take this step! That is how we shall make sure it remains a warrior's path rather than the path of a civilian, hiding from every threat, reduced to quivering in the presence of those with the strength and character to fight! You are those who will be witness to us." Meanwhile, Shinywings made his move, the unit of four bugs shifting in an asymmetric (and only halfway-coordinated) manner as they moved to engage the party of journeying bugs -- Stardust found herself attacked by the beetle himself, first, while one of the armored Marauders approached and the other two bugs came up short. Shinywings attacks Stardust! Although she didn't find herself on the losing end of the exchange with the enemy mage, it was quite possible that Stardust would find it quite disturbing. Even aside from the fact of lethal combat, there was something about the beetle's stare that just seemed to bore into her, reading her strengths and weaknesses and openly challenging him, projecting a quiet analytical force of will that seemed to make these things fall away -- a contest of minds and of will more than perhaps anything else. Thus, she found herself utterly unable to dodge the flash of forking electricity that connected the mage's tablet to herself, twitching her arm mightily and leaving it with a line of surprisingly slight burns from hand to elbow. Shinywings, however, did not manage to avoid the bolt of light sent his way, grunting as it burned away at him more. Practically diving in front of Shinywings, one of the two armored Marauders came in at Stardust with plastic lance in hand, giving the bug no chance to recover mentally from her previous engagement before falling at her. "Elite" Plunderer B attacks Stardust! Thankfully for Stardust, while the armored Marauder's lance looked awfully sharper the closer and closer he got to her, he didn't have Shinywings' unsettling ability to pierce through every extraneous, and a stab into the border of the grass fell quite short, with the Marauder's lance simply poking between two empty blades of grass as Stardust stepped backwards. She did not miss, however, and the armored Marauder shouted as a bolt of light magic blew a hole right through a pauldron with seemingly no effort, blowing the piece of armor into fragments. TURN 8 ~ PLAYER PHASE Map Notes Status EXP: 13/100

Isobel turned towards Reimu. "I'm Isobel Low, for the record -- I'm a botanist by trade, but to provide an answer that's a little bit more helpful... we're a world-crossing group of various... soldiers, adventurers, uh, I guess I'll say heroes, and other people who can fight and help other people fight. We're basically a small piece of a very, very large war, but it's a barely coordinated kind of thing -- there are these creatures called Trespassers that are trying to devour worlds, and this is one of the ones that they've been trying to. It looks like they establish a relatively small presence at first where they... corrupt some items or people, and then spread that from there until they've taken the place over. We've only seen and dealt with these starting points, so the spread is a bit of conjecture, but I think it makes sense. We've dealt with the incursion here, though I don't think there's any guarantee that it won't ever come back, so keep on your guard for similar incidents." LOTUS, now in tablet form, also spoke to the miko, now in a masculine and electronic voice. "I am the Logistical, Operational, and Tactical Uplink System -- an intelligent being created by humankind, although I took fairy form in this place temporarily thanks to actions of Yukari there." The green dots that represented eyes on his screen shifted to signal that he was focusing on Yukari now. "I suspect you were being intentionally vague about this, but I am going to ask for more details: were these items actually carried over by people from other worlds that were corrupted by the Trespassers? Did they directly deposit the items into the box from outside of this dimension? Did they directly corrupt an item or somebody here and then create and spread the others from there? It sounds most look you mean the first of these possibilities, but it's important to be clear about this because it tells us a great deal about just what the Trespassers' capabilities are on a wide scale. The implications are very far-reaching."

Just a little longer. Just a little longer. Just a little longer. These were the words that Navin repeatedly passed through his head in order to combat the rage still clouding his mind, the merciless thunderstorm causing his head to pound and his body to practically creak with the taut-wire tension in his muscles. Venus had exploded all of the remaining hooks in a brilliant display of firepower and flower power -- a blast that went from violent action to deceptively calm display as the petals fluttered to the ground. He could feel the circulation in his arms returning to normal, sensation and thrumming potential spreading to every place in his arms and hands as his fists and power recovered from the abuse that he had put them through. Just a little longer, and he would come roaring back in with a ferocious burst of power, and then that damned thing would be naught more than a smear. Just a little longer. Navin eats the stun. Active Cooldowns: One-Two Punch (0 turns)