Chevaleresse

"At least it's over with now. Phoenix has a point; you had to know coming in that nothing about this was going to be clean. We can only hope that each one that falls under our blades means a hundred that are freed from the cruelties of tyranny." Her expression stayed thoughtful, but internally she'd distracted herself; there had to be a way to work this into a ballad, somehow. With each stroke of the blade / we freed a hundred slaves. . . no, that was more of a song of glory. . . She put that aside for the moment, moving towards the wagon. "Ah, I recognize some of this stuff. Do you have a plan for disposing of it? I, um, would not recommend burning it. Though it might be very entertaining to watch the aftermath. . ."

"Just give me a moment." Kusuke seemed to apparently wink out of existence in front of Leo's eyes, just as he reappeared where he'd been standing near Satomi just a moment ago. "On the bright side, there's no trap waiting for us past that barrier. We really shouldn't split up in a place like this." He glanced at the surroundings, trying to reassure himself with the fact that it was, in fact, all illusory. "It's a bit disturbing, but so's everything here. . . Anyway, let's go." He waited for a moment to confirm Satomi was, in fact, moving toward the portal(?) before striding back through himself. The time traveler took one last look upward at the foreboding, unnatural structure, before rolling his shoulders and starting forward again. "No sense in wasting time."

Kusuke didn't say the first thing that cane to mind at the disappearance,m; the temptation was counterbalanced by concern. "Alright then." He mentally noted to keep an eye on her; this was almost certainly pushing too hard, but he doubted she could be dissuaded. "It's just this thing messing with us, they're probably not far away." Still, Kusuke tentatively approached the cutoff point, experimentally reaching a hand through.

Kusuke fell back slightly, moving closer to Satomi. He still wasn't sure if she should be here; as ragged as she already looked, this was the first time he'd seen her show actual fear. He glanced at her for a moment before concern for her well-being finally overwhelmed concern fir her honor. "Satomi, are you sure you're up for this? There's no shame in resting after a battle, especially after one of your allies backstabs you like that."

Initiative Status

"Naomi, she's going to cook you in your damned skin! This isn't the time to compliment her on her fucking animal ears!" She was going to get herself killed, diving into the enemy formation like that, and there wasn't much Rhian could do at this point other than hope to take down the others before they had a chance to finish the mage. Z17 and shoot the Myrmidon, AFTER Naomi finishes her conversation (unless said conversation would logically stop it)

"That may be the first direction we want to travel in, then." If she were more optimistic, she might hope that someone else had vanquished the demon while they planned, but more likely it meant that the monster had moved. "And quickly, at that, unless me move to Kamiki first to find Susano'o." The extra syllable slipped in involuntarily, but the goddess didn't seem to care enough to correct her mistake, if she noticed at all. "Shall you be staying here to ward the temple, shrine maiden of Amaterasu, or traveling with is?"

Heidrun couldn't help but tilt her head suspiciously at the brew Mar showed. Something just didn't feel right about it, nevermind how unappetizing it looked. Though, potions could be rather strange-looking (and smelling,) so maybe she shouldn't be so hasty to judge. . . Before she could respond, however, their host started to speak. "Ah, um, sorry, I actually came here rather unexpectedly, and walked right into a gang of thugs. I-I'm here to help, though!" She somehow doubted she was going to make the greatest impression on this woman, but then doing such a thing might've been difficult for anyone, judging by her attitude. Setting that aside for now - it's not as if there was anything she could do about it - Heidrun considered what she knew of computers. She wasn't an expert, by any means, but her world at least had them and the Internet; judging by the expressions of some of the others, they did not have that fortune. "How are we supposed to get him out of there, though? If he's spread out amongst a bunch of machines like that, I don't see how we could do it without destroying the whole thing. A-and it really would be good to avoid something like that."

"He is, unfortunately, very much alive. And I doubt you'd be more than a nuisance to him in a straight fight. He made his own Arch-Enemy, those things can level cities." He shook his head at the question. "You can't hire souls where I'm from. If people die, they die, and only human souls are strong enough to produce the effects you need for an Event Weapon. And why his family? He just, doesn't care. He's a monster. He looks at people, and he sees tools and objects. I don't know what happened to him. They were the most convenient, so he did it. At least he lost control of Nirvana."

"His wife. His wife AND his daughter." Kusuke's voice shook slightly, pitched lower than usual. He hadn't seen the process, but he'd seen the end result. "His kid walked in while he was doing it to the latter. Turned her into a mindless robot, put her soul in an Arch-Enemy Event Weapon just because he wanted to see what would happen. I guess he liked what he saw, because his wife was a full custom order." Kusuke looked straight at Leo for a moment. "So yeah, I'm not reassured just because this Flora is looking for friends."

"Friends. Sure. That word means a lot to psychopaths." He wasn't sure whether to be relieved or concerned that the whole place was basically one massive illusion. On the one hand, it meant they weren't surrounded by thousands of creatures. On the other, the ability to warp perception on that kind of scale. . . He really, really didn't like the idea of what a concentrated mental attack would look like. "I ever tell you about the worst person I ever knew of?"

"Ah, fuck this shit, why did it have to be creepy dolls of all things," Kusuke grumbled under his breath. He'd seen worse, albeit it was only that way because of what he knew of it, but that didn't mean he liked what was going on now. Kusuke checks behind them, to see if we're being followed. "So you're sure that whatever's behind all this is up there? Because usually, if someone doesn't like you and gets all inviting, it's a good time to start being extremely concerned."

"Runes damn it, Naomi, you can't just run forward like that!" It's almost as if the light mage were searching for more reasons to make Rhian dislike her. She was childish, and now she was going to bolt ahead and get herself killed because of it. "Come on, move up or she's going to get ripped apart!" Rhian to AB15

"Well, this is eerie. . ." Kusuke commented, head on a swivel. He followed Leo in for the moment, not liking the place at all. Cityscape wasn't something that bothered him, far from it, but a silent cityscape was unsettling. Especially taken in combination with what little he knew about this place. Some weird material Leo had found, corrupting his golems and now conjuring up a pocket dimension? Not friendly-sounding. He groaned inwardly; they were going to be fighting those golems, weren't they? At least they weren't mechanical in the normal sense.

Watching the God of Lust break down into tears wasn't exactly a reassuring sight. It was nerve-wracking, it and this entire situation. Her own memories had been tampered with, the person responsible for the worst thing she'd ever personally experienced was standing across the room, oh, and she was trying to make a decision about the fate of all Tempest. Hiroki inhaled, trying to both steady herself and work up the energy to speak further. At least her anxiousness and her crushed ego had struck some sort of energy equilibrium, at this point. "Shouldn't, um, we tell the rest of, um, the gods about Arcturus?" She still couldn't stop doing that. The idea that he'd somehow just reached into her head and messed with her memory was deeply unsettling. How would she know if it had happened before?

Chelchis made another rumbling noise, this one sounding almost. . . pleased? "SECURITY. SECURITY OF FACILITY HAS BEEN JOKE SO FAR. LET THEM COME." She did, however, pick up her pace slightly, trying to progress towards Central Computing as quickly as possible while still keeping her guard up. Unimpressive as the security was, even the most mundane of traps could end the lives of the foolish or unwary.

Kusuke reached out and touched his hand to her shoulder; when he did, Satomi felt a brief and possibly somewhat unsettling sensation of the entire garment moving over her skin. When it was finished, though, it was in the same condition it had been a few hours ago, before the siege had occurred. His expression darkened even further when she responded. Arminius. The man they'd both told off at various times for the usage of his powers. He could imagine what he might've done. "We're going to have some words, him and I, and I don't think he'll like it." He wasn't going to ask if he did what Kusuke thought the bastard did; Satomi likely wouldn't know for sure and clearly didn't want to talk about it right now. "But forget about him for now. If you're sure you're up for a fight, then we need to get ready."

Hiroki visibly jumped at the movement, or rather the results of such. That was fairly low on the list of things she'd expected from that. Perhaps not unexpectedly, she didn't quite get what Cell was trying to say; to her it looked like some kind of intimidation tactic, as unnerving as the sight was. "Um, okay. . .?" She shook her head, trying to get back to the topic. A way to survive underwater. They'd need a way to breathe down there, and probably one that wouldn't stop working at the slightest provacation. She'd suggest scuba tanks or something, but she doubted they had any of those lying around in a place like this. They could check out that shrine, but that might just waste time they didn't have. An idea occurred to her as she glanced in Soryn's direction, as he discharged the electricity from Jade. "Um, Soryn? Do you know, um, what electrolysis is?"

Lucine waved at him, nodding at what he said but not overly concerned with it. "His name is Moss! I met him in the swamp over there, we talked for a little bit." She glanced between the wyrmling and the enchanter for a brief moment. "Um, if anyone from the town asks, he's my familiar. People around here don't like dragons, I guess, and I promised him he'd be okay if he came with us." She somewhat belatedly realized how she must look, after crashing through that much underbrush and plodding through a muddy swamp. She started to prepare for a lecture, before also remembering that she wasn't at home, and wasn't likely to receive a scolding for being messy.

The route back to town was a little slow, on account of Lucine not exactly knowing the way back, but eventually she found her way out of the swamp and back toward civilization. She offered to carry some of his bags for him, and made sure to move a bit ahead of him once the town came into view. The homunculus crept out of the trees carefully, as if she were the one who needed to hide, and looked around for anyone she knew (or anyone that looked like they would jump to conclusions about her unusual traveling companion,) before waving to him to indicate that it was okay to come forward.

"I'm taking credit for that one, by the way." She did a last little pirouette in place, landing so that she faced the archers. "Do you care for another demonstration?"

Kane to M9, knife Diezel Justine to M8, dance Kane Kane knife Diezel again

"Well, hopefully it doesn't come to that." Even among berserkers? Perhaps the elderly-looking orc(?) was more of a physical hazard than he seemed. Not that she was personally afraid of him, or at least no more than the others; he didn't seem like the type to get angry for no reason, though she was, of course, wary of what would happen if he learned about her secret. "And even if it does, I'd like to think I could stop it from taking quite so long. I-If I may say so myself, I'm known as quite the talented healer, where I'm from."

7/10 Cute, but could use a little more color

K6, aggressively twerk at Baldur