Chevaleresse

Rhian took a deep breath after the reveal of the room and its lack of Wing Commander. She exhaled slowly, then spoke. "Something like that." So he wasn't here. Disappointing. "We were trying to find him, but it seems we'll need to keep looking." And of course the room had been cleaned, so that there wouldn't be any traces of him or where he had gone left behind. The fact that he was being treated to a room like this instead of the dungeon was concerning, too. Had the bastard decided that what he'd done wasn't enough, and thrown in with this lot?

Nemesis was quiet, mulling over the information for a moment. Seamless bark, only one vital point to hit. Difficult to deal with, to say the least. "Don't suppose there's any toxins that work on them?" If they were some sort of plant-monster, then there had to be a way to poison them, right? "Failing that, I suppose I'll have to see what sort of other tools you have for dealing with them. I don't exactly look forward to ruining my blade trying to hack through one."

"He left," Justine said simply. She sighed, looking down for a moment. "He didn't tell me where or why, just that he couldn't stay. I tried to convince him, but he thought that his being here would only bring us harm in the end."

"Oh, okay. Well, thanks, Foxface! I should follow him so he doesn't get in trouble." Lucine gestured at the direction Nader had departed, waved a goodbye to the odd little fox creature with a smile, then trotted off after him. It may have been hard to follow him with how she loitered. . . but Nader didn't exactly move about quietly. Of course, she was interrupted again by the ominous message, which was fairly effective at squashing her cheer and returning her to her state of anxiousness. I'm safe, but what barrier? Why do they need to. . .? Her train of thought was interrupted as she thumped into Nader's back with a small squeak.

"Umm. . . sure." Gwyn didn't want to be mean, but also wasn't particularly comfortable around Cursed. "I bet there are some cool bugs and stuff that live in there. And, um, tea is nice, though I usually drink it to find kinds that Gaheris would like."

"You know, 'bat out of hell' isn't the worst way to describe Lady Flandre. . . at her worst, anyway. She's really not so bad." She sighed again at the requests for information. "Let's just start from the top, I guess. I don't really have anything else to do for a few hours. Since you're Outsiders, you wouldn't know, but this is the Scarlet Devil Mansion. Remilia Scarlet, the Young Descendant of Tepes, is the lady of the house, and has been for a few centuries. Flandre is her younger sister, and she isn't allowed to leave the house. She's nice enough, but she doesn't quite understand certain things." "Like what happens when she 'plays with' a human," Sakuya interrupts. "Sakuya, you know these people are strangers, right? They don't need to know everything about the place, especially not Flan's. . . you know, quirks." "Leaving bloody smears instead of humans isn't a 'quirk,' and they need to know if I'm not going to be around to help contain her." "And whose fault is that?" Meiling asked accusatorily. "You're the one who went nuts again and attacked Remilia." "I barely remember anything after finding that artifact. Which I correctly guessed was dangerous, but tried to remove at your insistence that it wasn't going to be so bad." Meiling looked down guiltily at this. Sakuya took the opportunity to turn her attention to the party. "Normally I wouldn't ask a group including strange humans to even come into the mansion, much less talk to my employer, but I don't seem to have much recourse elsewise. Since you're already dealing with this incident, you're the best equipped to explain what exactly happened." "You're telling me that you expect me to let a huge group of heavily armed strangers into the mansion?" "Yes." "Give me a break. . ." She wearily put her hand to her head for a moment, before turning towards the building. "Fine. It'd get boring around here without you anyway," she said quietly. Meiling waved at the group. "Come on, then, I guess you get an impromptu tour. Just don't break anything, and please don't wander off."

"Have you met people?" she asked Jack sarcastically. "If it doesn't hurt, that means its fine. Obviously." She rolled her eyes at the memory of some of her prior coworkers before moving her way over to Zoe, trying to pass over the pyromania for the moment. Scarlet didn't exactly have a lot of room to criticize. "Well, I can't say this is going to help a lot with the pain, but it'll make the tooth marks go away." The merc placed a hand over Zoe's wounds, ordering her nanobots to repair the woman instead of her. She dismissed the small warning message displayed in the corner of her eye - they didn't like being told to do that when she wasn't in perfect condition - and shook her hand slightly as if that would somehow affect how the machines behaved.

Mitsurugi had been largely silent on the journey there, lost in thought. Lexiel's words were enough to finally shake the woman out of her own head, at which point she frowned. "Were you not just trying to lecture me on how I treat the people of this land?" She gave the angel a reproachful look. "An inn is a livelihood, destroying it is near tantamount to destroying the owners."

"HYDRA! GET DOWN!" Thunderlord shouted at the top of her lungs as she immediately opens up, sending a wave of roaring machine gun fire towards the thing's single glowing "eye," the only weak point on the Hydra chassis. She had no idea how such a thing got here, only that its presence represented not only a danger to those in the vicinity, but to the entire planet. Once it was destroyed - potentially at great cost, due to its volatile and heavily armored nature - she would need to sweep every nook and cranny of this entire city, searching for ominous mechanical cults. . . She almost felt panic beginning to set in as she peppered the thing with fire.

Hiroki followed Gozer across, unwilling to dismiss her outer layer of armor until she crossed the trap nonetheless. "I feel like that was supposed to be harder. . ." she mused quietly, before looking back at Gozer. "That was, um, a good job, though."

"O-oh, right, I, umm, forgot." Gwyn took a deep breath. "That's. . . okay, though? You're not mean or anything. . ." The half-fae seemed to more be trying to convince themselves than reassure Blodeuyn.

Now that I'm back at my computer, let me reply to your points as politely as possible. Firstly, I am a regular user of bay12. My username is still KingMurdoc, because I haven't gotten it changed by Toady yet. I am familiar with who you are, and your history on the forum. There are many forum games that allow people to join late. My own is an example. This game is not one. FEF formats make it hard to run rolling signups. If they are recruiting they will be marked as such. If someone says it is not open, you accept that answer and move on. Let me lay out the problems with your approach to the character sheet problem, so that you may correct it. Fire Emblem on Forums sheets are not complex affairs. Nor are they an "arbitrary initiation ritual." As a D&D 3.5 veteran, you are fully equipped to set some growth percentages and choose a class. They are easy. You didn't ask for help, you asked someone to make a sheet for you, a sheet that objectively does not require very much effort out of the player. A portrait, on the other hand, is harder to do. Not everyone has experience with pixel art or the appropriate editing programs (though neither is hard to do with some effort and time.) Hence the expectation that one will provide their own sheet, but also that one may need help finding a portrait. Your attitude towards that portrait, while not a large problem by itself, contributes to the impression that you do not respect the format enough to learn it and follow it at least slightly. As for me "telling you how your autism works," I did so because I am autistic myself. I have been educating myself about autism for over a decade. I have autistic relatives. I have autistic friends. I know what autism does and does not affect. Autism can make one prone to sensory overloads, and interfere with the reading of subtle social cues that neurotypical individuals do not have an issue with, and it is theorized that this has to do with differences in the formation of mirror neurons as well as hypermasculinization in prenatal development. Autism does not directly affect your ability to read a handbook, parse rules, and create a character sheet based on those rules, unless you have an associated mental disability. As you have proven yourself to be fully capable of running a forum game, I must assume that you do not have another issue that affects your reading comprehension or ability to write. Which, in turn, means that it is not an explanation or excuse for a refusal to process a fairly simple (on the player side) ruleset and produce a sheet. Do not assume that my refusal to accept your explanation comes from a place of ignorance or bigotry, because it comes from precisely the opposite. Now that I have said my piece, I would ask you to politely keep further conversation on this matter to private messages, out of respect for the hosts of this game. I will freely admit that this should have gone to that area before this post.

I was around for your last attempt. If you were as invested as you claim, you would have investigated whether the game was actually open and found that it's full on players. You were disrespectful towards the other players and expected them to bear the burden of your character for them. These games are not short term investments and it is concerning to a GM that you aren't willing to take basic steps like making your own character or obtaining a portrait that's actually in the same style as the rest. Furthermore, you also haven't joined either of the FEF discords, which are the best places to get information and help in all these regards and more. If I have misjudged you, I welcome you to prove me wrong. I am glad to see people who put time and care into their characters joining the community. Unfortunately, your behavior has not indicated that this is the case thus far, so I am acting accordingly. As a final note, there's no sort of schedule for these games. With limited GMs and the intensive, long term effort needed to host one, they don't crop up very often.

This is the recruitment thread.

No.

Gwyn tilted their head as they handed the books back to their rightful owner. "Huh? What do you mean? Fae go wherever they please."

"Nothing is beyond forgiveness, Ferdiad." She spoke sadly, but with a sternnness that actually startled herself slightly. "I don't know who you were or what you did before you joined Virtuous, but you've done nothing but good since I've known you. Whatever lies in your past, the fact that you've continued to do good makes you a man of the highest standing in my eyes." She sighed with resignation. "You'll always be alongside us in our hearts."

Justine frowned. That wasn't exactly what she had expected. Ferdiad, Knight, Kane's dependable right hand man, leaving? Unless he just meant the castle, but she somehow doubted that it was that simple, if he was going to react this way. "Well. . . I wish I didn't have to hear it. I won't try to convince you to stay, as much as I want to." She sighed. "I only ask. . . why? You've been with us for so long, and endured so much for the sake of us and our cause. Honestly, you might have done more for the group than Kane himself. Certainly more than this humble songstress." Justine looked him in the eyes. "I know you would never leave if it wasn't something that meant everything to you. I just want to know what's taking you from us."

"Asshole," Scarlet bit off under her breath. Raising her voice a bit, she called out to the rest of the team. "If any of you want to be put back together, you might want to let me do it. And no, I don't care if you can't feel the pain because you drank something that was sixty percent alcohol by volume, you still need a patch." With the combat over, she gritted her teeth and tried to ignore the crawling, unpleasant sensation of nanomachines knitting her wounds back together. The ex-pirate moved over towards the stash of loot that had been left behind by... whatever the hell those things were, rolling her eyes at Jack as he tried to swallow one. "I'm not fixing that, by the way," she commented on the action. She wasn't planning on keeping any of the gear or gems, but figured it was a good way to get everyone to actually get close enough to her for her to get a look at them.

"Er, where do you think I should be? If there's going to be fighting, I should probably be nearby to patch everyone over, though I'm. . . not that useful in a direct one." A half-truth; she'd never really wanted to learn any sort of offensive magic on her own, and the closest she had was the ability to link her own life to a person attacking her so they couldn't harm her without harming themselves. "I'm afraid I'm not very good at blending into big cities like this, either."

"What? No, I have no idea where that came from." She glanced at the bedraggled maid currently a bit behind the bulk of the group. "The fairy maids probably stole it from her wardrobe. Keep it, because after this little incident I doubt she'll need it." The glance became a glare, if that glare's mother had been a pout. The maid being addressed coughed up a mouthful of water. Her eyes were slightly red - as in, literally red - but almost as soon as the effect had been noticed, it was already gone, replaced by a clear blue tone that must have been her normal eye color. "Meiling. . ." The maid finally spoke up once again, though she was interrupted by another cough. Her voice still managed to sound cool and refined despite that. "You know this mansion would fall apart without me. Unless you want to deal with Flandre by yourself from now on." The guard - Meiling, apparently - looked fairly alarmed by that idea, but quickly smoothed her face over into something she probably thought looked stern again. "Patchouli can keep her contained. She's done it before, she can do it again." Her tone wasn't particularly convincing. "And if all else fails, we can just call the miko. She entertained her once before." "And what about the mess that she'll leave before Reimu gets here?" Meiling flinched, then sighed. "Look, it's not up to me. Do you really think Remilia is just going to let you back in? Weird artifact or no, you tried to stake her. It's my job to protect her, even if it's from you, Sakuya." The maid sighed, and looked at the group with a defeated expression.

As if she'd planned the motion that way all along, Megumi flowed into an "attack" on Yoriie after the tap, hoping to initiate a spar. "Do you really think so? I won't shy away from it, but it's not good to hear that it will be needed." Her voice held genuine concern; while a small part of her did want to fight and nearly agreed with the bloodthirsty soldier youkai, that urge was small and usually just satisfied with a match like her. She believed in what she said earlier; fighting was never a good thing, and one should seek an end to it as soon as one could if it broke out.

"If there's something wrong, you can talk to me. I speak many words, but that just means I can pick and choose which ones to give out." She walked a few steps closer. "I'm not an expert on horse care, but I think a battle is enough exercise for one." She stopped, not wanting to invade his space. It wasn't a good time to engage in her usual teasing, she felt. Justine nearly opened her mouth to ask another question. Are you going somehere? She feared what the answer might be, though; she'd never seen him like this.

Justine picked at her food a bit. It was starting to get cold, and the events of the day had been so tumultuous that she had a hard time getting her stomach to settle at all, It would be rude to not eat after her host offered, though, and Cecily would be annoyed with her if she didn't eat her dinner. She forced herself to get a reasonable amount down - it was still good, even if she wasn't feeling very hungry - before politely excusing herself from the table. After that. . . she wandered. Part of her longed to go find Stella in her room, but the queen had just experienced a great loss; Justine feared she would say or do something crass, and hurt her. So, she ambled about the castle, thinking about the day's events, mulling over the choice they had to make. It was easier to think clearly about without Stella around. Her musings were interrupted as she wandered close to the stables, and caught a glimpse of a familiar figure. She moved closer, verifying who it was; she hadn't seen the man since the battle ended. "Ferdiad?" The man looked. . . sad. Broken, almost. Almost a different person from the Knight she knew. "Are you okay?"

Nemesis glanced down at his sword. No, he didn't want to ruin that. it wouldn't do well, anyway. "Good to know. Wasn't planning on getting any of those bio-augs; I'm ugly enough already, who knows what putting Teras bits in would do?" Something about Nemesis's tone felt forced, despite his best attempt at humor. Really, he was just trying to deflect suspicion away from the full coverage of his face. "Anyway. I don't suppose you've got a way to deal with the things from further away? I don't plan on fighting them if I can avoid it, but in my experience that sort of plan tends to not last."