Chevaleresse

". . . Oh. Arturia, if you hadn't been told already." A definite note of displeasure. Hidden under an attempt to be polite and conflated a bit with her existing. . . everything, but she was still not entirely thrilled to be sharing the room with someone else. It took a moment to click. "Wait, you wanted to be Kaede's roommate?" She gave her existing roommate a questioning look. "I think that's the first time I've heard of someone else wanting to. No offense, Kaede." Something about being around her draining, or something. She felt drained half the time regardless of whether Kaede was around, so Arturia didn't put too much stock in it. It's not like teenaged girls were well-known for only excluding their peers based on fair, unbiased criteria.

"She's okay. Physically. I think. She's, uh, had a long day, and for the sake of her privacy I'm gonna leave it at that for now." She sighed. Arturia was in this way too deep. Church officials making death threats, tiny cute goddesses having power short circuits, girls hitting on her after sending her to the hospital. . . it was almost funny. Almost. "I was going to talk to Miss Katherine about her situation in private before I had Miss Bitch over there invade my room." She glanced in Kaede's direction. Arturia forgot sometimes that she was important in the Church; really, she tried to put the organization out of her mind most of the time. Something that was going to have to change, she supposed.

P28

Arturia made a strangled-sounding offended noise, and seemed to be about to reply. Fortunately, Kindle left before she could make a fool of herself, and upon the door closing behind her, Arturia visibly deflated, sighing with something that might've been an expletive. "Church officials in my room are the last thing I needed today." She turned towards her bed in a gesture that Kaede might have recognized as her being about to flop upon it in tired frustration, only for her to realize that Lilith was, indeed, still present, and still unconscious. Whether this was a good thing or a bad thing was up for debate. "Sorry, I'm not used to dealing with anyone important, and wasn't really expecting to need to. Uh, this is Lilith, she's. . . having a worse day than I am. Sorry for just bringing her here like this."

The fourth swarm of fairies fires another line of danmaku at Masako, as she'd been doing an excellent job of exploding large numbers of them. One of the bursts fired previously connects with her for 9 damage. Isobel hurries over to the tengu while her own personal advice fairy does her thing, cleansing the last of the poison and reducing the cooldown of Shocking Insight yet again. Empi decides to use some of her moves on the swarm of fairies. She belatedly remembers reading a comic that might indicate this is a bad idea, but hey, they were about to explode, right? The third swarm finally figures out that Isobel and her own fairy are contributing to the bruising they're recieving, and fires another bit of danmaku in her direction. Masako lets up on the Revelations for once, sending a more basic spray of danmaku at the enraptured fairy swarm for [38] damage. Rory fires a burning stake into the mushroom, which responds roughly as one would expect, taking [5] damage and being set alight for another [5]. Hikari shoots the remaining fairies of the fourth swarm out of the sky as if they were jetpack-using security guards. A burst of red danmaku flies out, targeting [Masako, Rory, and Ritsu.] The third swarm attacks again, aiming for Masako once more. Walmond tazes the remaining swarm again for [8] damage, while Lambda renews her Defensive Modifications. Ritsu chainsaws the remaining fairies for [35] damage. The remainder decide that this is not even close to fun any more, and their oddly darkened shapes flee. The poison mushroom slips past the party. A cloud of toxins erupts from it as [Rory] brushes past it, [Fail] stunning her for a turn. A clearing, full of blasted trees and scorched craters, appears in the woods ahead of the party. Floating near the front of it is a woman dressed in a black-and-white dress with a large hat that one might expect to see on a sterotypical witch, at least if it wasn't tied on top with a large white ribbon with another frilly layer beneath. Unlike the fairies they'd encountered thus far, she seemed to be a normal-sized (if on the short end) human, and in lieu of wings, she was riding on a broom. She turned to face the party, and it was immediately apparent something was wrong, at least to Masako, who'd had encounters with this particular individual before. Rather than a bright golden gaze coming from beneath the wide-brimmed hat, her eyes were simply two seeming orbs of a bluish-white. The rest of her face was invisible, with shadow appearing to cling to it. "Eh? Don't you know a place like this is dangerous to just wander around in?" There was a strange echo underlying her voice. "All sorts of magical artifacts just waiting to be used to blow someone up and take their stuff, ze! I've been wanting to try out this one I found." She raised a hand, and in it was held. . . something. It looked like some ancient, weathered rock, shaped into some kind of crest, but had an unmistakable sinister energy about it. Her other hand brought something less sinister, but equally worrying (to Masako at least) object to rest framed by the crest: a thing just small enough to fit in one's hand against the palm, an octagonal block of what looked like wood with trigrams printed on the face. Judging by the ominous humming noise that began, it was a good idea to start moving. Initiative Status

Heidrun side-eyed Solomon as he reacted. Did he really think throwing books around like that was appropriate? Though that was beside the point. They did at least have some way of accomplishing their goal, even if some kind of assassination was a bit. . .outside her usual expertise and comfort zone, to say the least. Apparently it would be a good thing, but it still didn't feel quite right, and there were other concerns besides. "What about those technomancers? Doesn't putting ourselves in a virtual world mean leaving ourselves vulnerable to them?"

"I, um, still think it's not a good idea. We don't know if, um, the place the Water Stone is dangerous." She had followed what he had said, barely. Hiroki hadn't made it this far by not being able to take in information quickly, after all. "It would be, um, better to leave it for later, so we can try to find some, um, useful things for getting down there." At the very least, the weird headless guy seemed to agree with her. That was. . . good? Edmond had similar thoughts as well. "We should just, um, get the Fire Stone as a group, then go, um, for the Rock Stone, then the Ice Stone, then the Air Stone. All of those, if we can get, um, them to do anything, could help us get the Water Stone."

Lucine's expression noticeably ticked up in nervousness as soon as Tim mentioned the rest of the group. She had come back on her own, after all (she didn't exactly want to live in a swamp on a strange world), but that didn't mean she was incredibly keen on doing so. "Are you sure they're not going to try and terminate me or turn me into a cup? I don't want to be a cup." The girl sounded legitimately fearful of the possibility. Her "parents" had warned her to stay away from other mages. . . after a moment, she turned a suspicious eye to Tim, carefully watching his response.

And that would be their gashadokuro friend, as she had suspected. Convenient, if worrying that it was willing to approach this shrine. One would think the presence of the local shrine maiden would have discouraged the thing's presence; these were times where "extermination" didn't imply tea and cookies. She nodded at Spicy's words, putting the burrowing imp to the side for a moment mentally - it would be making an issue of itself shortly, but one needed priorities. She darted towards the beast, a faint telltale shimmer of divine power surrounding her larger blade as she slashed upward at the thing in tandem with Spicy. She made her own followup strike, a rising slash that left her hanging in the air above the thing to survey the damage she had dealt, before she made another attack in rapid succession, returning to ground quickly enough to nearly defy sight and pausing briefly at her landing. Her blade rang with the repeated impacts upon the thing's twisted bones as she turned to face it once more. Mitsurugi uses her free attack to strike with her Blade of the Phantom Moon, and then uses Shukuchi to strike two more times, dealing a total of 3 attacks at [5d6+14 (DEX)+14 (SYN)+16 (from perk)] = 5d6 + 44 damage, all targeted at the Gashadokuro. (total damage is 15d6+132)

Kusuke Recalls Satomi, then uses all of his remaining actions, plus his banked actions, to attack Flora with his Timeslicer

"I'm warning you, it's not a very good story."

"We really, um, shouldn't split up. None of, um, us know anything about the island." She took a deep breath, then continued. "We'll be able to fight past the Makuta's monsters, um, faster if we stay together, and the, um, extra time won't matter if someone gets lost or killed trying, um, to get the stone. We just need to pick a stone and go for that one. Probably one that, um, we can actually get to, first."

Kusuke Recalls himself, banks another turn, then attacks one Rope Marionette.

K23, guard Elizabeth and also hatchet the swordsman

Kusuke stores all three of his actions for this turn.

"Naomi, I'm still gonna kick your ass for that later. Damn suicidal kids. . ." She moved up and snapped off a shot at one of their foes. AA20, shoot Myrm

"I recall someone mocking the 'petty theatrics' of the darkness that came upon uttering the name of a dark god, yet cautioning me to take care with the mechanics of an unfamiliar world." Mitsurugi took a look around, assessing their foes. Lesser demons, not much to be afraid of, though it seemed that the gashudakuro they were seeking may have found them instead. Troubling, but not unexpected. Perhaps Lexiel's oafishness was playing to their advantage in this case. The goddess took one calm step forward, then suddenly leapt through the air, darting forth at the yellow beast and striking it in succession with both blades. Mitsurugi attacks with her daisho, dealing 5d6+DEX (14)+SYN (14), 20% more damage to spirits. 15% ailment resistance chance.

"Yeah. 'The mighty heroes, after disposing of the wicked peddler of drugs and sin, went on to free the innocent souls wrongly imprisoned.'" Justine put on a voice as if she were narrating a play, before swapping back to a more normal conversational one. "Kane believes it should be mostly innocents, and, well, I've already trusted him to bring me around the land with a group of heavily armed complete strangers - not that they're strangers any more - so it would be silly to start doubting now."

One of the Kusukes vanished as the other strode forward. "Really, really not liking this place," he mumbled, glancing between the dark building ahead, the warped "plants" nearby, and Satomi, keeping an eye on the latter's well-being. He still firmly believed that she should have stayed behind, especially when something as prone to messing with one's head as this was on the table. There was also the matter of what was going to happen once they were done; Arminius had a lot to answer for.

Kusuke decides to split timelines, having his future self come back, teleport over to the winch, and throw the lever, while the first one attempts to trip and disarm the guard.

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" The iron structure looked far too heavy for them to lift, though if it was mostly illusory, it might not have quite so much substance. . . which also meant he could manage it on his own. "I'm gonna check something else out first, you, uh, have fun with that." Kusuke walks back along the path that seems to lead away from the castle, to see if there's another portal. Failing that, he'll teleport past the portcullis and look for some sort of gatehouse and associated lifting mechanism.

"Don't worry, my friends, I will be your shield!" Alwine's armor thundered against the hard stone floors as she moved upward, shield and axe both raised and ready for combat - until she reached position, and pitched her hatchet at the enemy. "Hrrraaah!" H23 hatchet healer

Arturia felt her irritation spike at the stranger's tone - which was probably a good thing, as it helped hide the increase in anxiety she felt at the questioning. She was involved in this, whatever it really was, which ratcheted her potential threat level even higher. She hadn't heard of the government running around employing magical teenagers, but that didn't necessarily mean it wasn't happening. "It put me in the hospital for weeks, if that counts. I was out in the woods trying to make sure she" - she nodded her head towards Lilith, who Arturia was starting to lay out across one of the beds "-was okay. I ended up worse off than she was, as far as I know." The silver haired girl took a deep breath before continuing; she hadn't meant to do it at all, but she did her best to pass it off as continued annoyance at the situation. Besides, it was reasonable to look a little anxious, right? There was a stranger in her room threatening her and her friend. "And no, I haven't encountered any blasphemers, not that. . ." I believe in blasphemy at all . . . "a place like this would have that many." Maybe that was her excuse: a nonbeliever being nervous when confronted by a church official had plenty of reason to be nervous. Probably not the safest ploy, but maybe she'd be dismissed as something minor and left while she chased the bigger fish. "And I already told you. She's not feeling well, so I brought her back here to rest up. This isn't abnormal for her, so I figured it wasn't worth bothering anyone important for. Apparently someone important thought it was worth bothering me for, though."

"I'm doing alright. I knew what I was signing up for, don't worry about it." Justine shrugged, and took on a slightly lighter expression. "Besides, all I had to do was prance around a little bit and shake my butt to motivate people. It beats having Mother asking me when I'm going to find a husband or, you know, not find one."