Chevaleresse

"Getting to the bottom will be no issue for myself, but I may be able to assist in powering this item, if you feel you are able to work ofuda into your device. I simply need some paper." Mitsurugi thinks for a moment. "And a pen, if you have one."

"I see. Yeah, I could organize this mess, just give me some time to figure out what I'm working with." Upon sighting Andre, he stares at him with a mixture of being impressed and bemusement. "So, er, you're the guy that was shouting at me earlier?"

"Huh. So you've got a job, but no employer, and a team, but no leader. Sounds like I could help out here, at the very least. You don't seem to be a bad guy and hunting monsters is half of what I do for a living already. Just hope I can get back to the team, they'd be lost without me." He turns in the general direction of where he'd heard Andre's voice. "Take me to that other guy, if you would, I wanna know who he is."

"Nightmares? I assume you don't mean the actual horse-beasts. . . The landscape? Hills and forest, and the place sat inside a bend in the river. The land dipped down on the other side of it; the artificer said she thought there was a moat cutting off that side at one point, too." He inhales deeply, then exhales. "Who's in charge of this operation, anyway?"

He remains frowning, brows furrowed. "Huh. . . All of you? And just for monster hunting? They've got to be pretty nasty monsters if someone put in that much effort. . . I suppose this means that the rest of the gang's gonna have to clean out that ruin alone - because this is definitely not that place any more unless they developed real moving castles while I wasn't looking."

Mitsurugi returns to the researcher and reports her findings, stabbing any critter that seems to get too unruly as she passes.

Everything seems to be in order; it's exactly as it was left previously, except for the new dusting of sand. Mar might remember another situation involving people being suddenly warped to another universe and not really knowing how it happened.

He frowns. "That should be impossible. If they'd been teleported away or something, I would have felt it unless there's a mage of transcendent talent doing it. That guy that was yelling, he said something about moving between universes? Is that even possible?"

Mar is unable to find a single trace of anyone in the castle other than the man currently following him.

"...You have a pet giant spider?" He looked at Mar questioningly before shaking his head. "We split up just a corridor or so back, but I don't remember seeing any wheels when I came in; this place is half-buried or more. It took us an hour just to find an entrance. I heard some voice calling for help, so I ducked around the corner to look for her."

"Yamaguchi Masaru." His brows furrow in confusion. "A good plan, but travel? Last I checked, castles don't move. Well, there was Lowh, but I'm pretty sure that's a myth. Is this place trapped somehow? My friends should have been able to hear that shouting."

"I assumed the same thing about you. It would be rude to just call you 'orc,' so may I ask your name?" He turns the sword over so the nonexistent point is pressed against the stone brick of the floor, and half-leans on it as he speaks. "I was sent here to investigate this ruin along with the rest of my party and clear out anything particularly murderous. Not sure where they went off to, since I wasn't far from them when I rounded that last corner.

"If I step into an ambush or a trap I swear to Nishiki that I will shove this. . ." The voice trails off as Mar hears footsteps approach him once more. The owner of the voice finally comes into view; a tall, blonde, muscular man in a black outfit, complete with a three-part cape that was black on the outside with a brown lining. He's carrying a sword that appears to weigh more than most people with a flat end to it. He looks around both corners cautiously, then looks up; upon sighting Mar, he leaps backward a good five feet and takes a stance with his weapon held above and behind himself, ready for a downward strike or similar.

"Switched universes? The hell does that mean, all I did was round a corner! And you still didn't answer my damn question!" The voice is coming from the servant's quarters, if Andre cares.

"I'm gonna ignore that one comment to ask whose castle this actually is. This place was supposed to be abandoned." The unknown man shouts back, raising his voice so Andre could hear him clearly. Mar, meanwhile, sticks to the ceiling quite well; Aurora might have even been amused by his impression of her.

The crash from Andre's assault on a hapless suit of armor causes the set of footsteps to abruptly stop. "Who's there?" a man's voice rings out, of a slightly high pitch. There's no quaver of fear or similar, though. "I'm warning you, ambushing me won't work out for you." Andre might be able to hear it echo, and Aurora's keen senses likely picked up the voice, but Mar heard it loud and clear.

Andre enters the castle without incident, though he nearly decapitates one of the decorative suits of armor. It's fortunate, since it would have thrown Mar off pretty badly. Mar can hear the steps quite clearly; they're coming closer, but in starts. Whoever it is walks a few paces, then pauses for some reason, then continues on their way. The footfalls are fairly heavy, suggesting someone large, but don't sound armored.

Hiroki attacks B5 or just sort of flails sadly if her prediction fails

Andre picks up his gauntlets from the blacksmith. He also hands the glaive to him, requesting he give it to Mar. Marisa heads back into an alleyway. Should nothing interrupt her, she looks around for a moment, and then vanishes in a burst of fire and brimstone. Mar walks into the castle, heading toward one of the sets of bedrooms. On his way, he notices something odd; he should be alone in the castle, yet he can hear footsteps without the accompanying odor that one would associate with Andre.

Andre remembers that he has some equipment waiting for pickup. Mar remembers that there's a perfectly good castle mostly not sunk into the sand.

"Brawler, huh? Works for me." A hunter from across the room waves at him, then points at the rear exit. "Well, looks like I've gotta go. Hope to see you in one of my hunts eventually." He gives Andre his own wave of farewell, then strides out the back with three other hunters. One of them, dressed in light-looking and asymmetrical armor with some sort of odd crossbow-looking thing strapped to his back, ducks right back in a few seconds later, skitters over to the shop in the building, slams some money down on the counter, and runs back with an armful of ammo before vanishing out the door. "Hm. I'll admit right now, this isn't something I've got a lot of practice with. To start with, though, you need to attune this thing to yourself and whatever you're using for storage better somehow. I can tell it's got all sorts of junk information in it." She frowns at the crystals, thinking. "Yeah, I'm gonna need to ask for expert advice on something like this. If you're still in that castle thing, I should be able to stop by again later - hopefully with something more for your group - and help you out with it."

"I see something in the distance. I am going to investigate it." True to her word, the goddess continues on her path toward the unknown object. She strikes at any wildlife that might look hostile.

"Uh, bye, I guess?" Aaaand Aurora was gone. Or watching silently from where Marisa couldn't see her. One of those two. However, something just as intriguing was right her to replace her: Mar and his magic tablet. Mar's magic was. . . bizarre, to say the least. It didn't have any of the complex structures that one expected to see from enchantments that seemed to cover literally everything he owned. She was almost - scratch that, she was extremely jealous of the way it just seemingly. . . did what he wanted it to. "What'd you need?" "I wasn't expecting that much out of you, I'll admit. That felt like wrestling a Deviljho with better breath. And, uh, I mean no offense, but I'm awful with names. You got a nickname or anything that you go by?" The greatsworder stretches his arm out as he walks a few steps away from the table, rejoining the small crowd watching.

Mitsurugi leaps upward to get a better view of the surrounding area. Once she's looked around a bit, she picks the target that looks to be the best combination of "far away from the rest of the party" and "close to the temple" and attacks it with a few simple sword strikes.

possibly never going to be used