Chevaleresse

Rhian was somewhere between flinching and rolling her eyes at the sound of the spell lancing out again. Of course the idiot rider gets herself zapped out the sky; had she really managed to forget something that basic? She shifted as she felt the wind of Idriss's landing beside her. The knight wasn't expecting the hand offered to her, however, and a strange expression crossed her face before she took it. Hoisting herself up, she settled into a seat behind Johanna on the dragon without any further assistance. eyes watching the enemy forces. . . or at least trying to. She couldn't help but glance downward at the beast beneath her. She wouldn't be able to land any shots from up here, so Rhian simply held her bow in a strong grip, preparing for takeoff. Her free hand idly rubbed at the dragon, trying to reassure Idriss in the face of hostile thunder magic, not that she believed he needed it.

"Weapon upgrades? No, I wouldn't trust anything you made to not bite me or explode in my hand. Which is exactly what I need to talk to you about. This nonsense about a law of exclusion or whatever? It's not true here, it's not true anywhere except for your world, and you had better start acting that way." He fixed Leo with a hard glare. "This isn't going to be tolerated any more. If I wasn't clear earlier, if I catch you playing around with anything this obviously dangerous again, I'm doing something about it, and you, myself." He leaned backward slightly, folding his arms. "Understand?"

L8 Dance

Rhian side-eyed the light mage. She agreed with the request for action, but nobody that gleeful about killing could be trusted. She'd have to bring up her concerns with Johanna later. For now, though. . . "Alright, you traitorous bastards, do a good enough job of pretending to be dead and I might not make you that way for real!" She strode forward, drawing back the string on her new bow. S9, shoot mage

I will also take it

Elias focused on his breathing for a moment, trying to get the pain to fade faster. He had questions, in a number that was only growing as he had more time to calm down and think. He hesitated to ask any for the time being - the man said he was concentrating, after all - but curiosity burned. Though the idea that the man felt everything he did was. . . unnerving. There were several reasons he did not like that, though it wasn't quite as bad if it was only pain. "Where are you, exactly? I hesitate to look around, in my current state." Thinking about his position on the floor, he resisted the urge to groan slightly. Nevermind his gruesome injury, these floors were going to be ruined, and if it fell on his responsibility he might wish he had died. He did not envy Sebastian for taking care of it, either.

"O-oh." The look of concern on her face only continued to grow. "Most of you, you say?" What on earth had she gotten herself into? "Uhm, well. . . hopefully those of you that do can keep me safe." With the way her tone rose at the end, the statement sounded much more like a question than she had intended. "I guess with a group as diverse as this one, the levels of competence will vary too." She glanced back and forth at the group, trying to do something other than look at the man in the stained labcoat. It was indeed quite the menagerie. A lot of them seemed to be using some very advanced technology. "So, um, does your group come from a very futuristic place? Er, I suppose it wouldn't be futuristic for you, but I've never seen armor like that, or a thinking robot."

"I'll believe it when I see it." She gripped the axe, trying to recall her training with one. An odd expression flitted across her expression for a moment before she shook her head, a familiar scowl settling in its place. Best to just go with what felt right for now. Kerr would quickly discover that what "felt right" to Rhian was, perhaps not unexpectedly, quite aggressive. Fast, wild attacks, more concerned with simply landing a strike than any real goal in combat, came at him in a barrage. There was a technique to it, that much could be seen, but it was beneath a thick layer of anger and another of rust. Taken individually, each strike wouldn't have been hard to dodge, but a flurry of them was a different matter - at least until they began to slow, along with Rhian's breathing becoming more and more labored, sweat flying with every swing of the weapon.

Mitsurugi offered another polite bow of farewell. "Travel safely, Tanabe Seketsune. Good luck in your travels." She straightened, taking a deep breath. No signs of bad weather that she could feel, not that her reach extended particularly far nowadays. The goddess did feel invigorated by the air, though. . . this was the kind of era her kind had thrived in. Mitsurugi turned towards the shrine. "Now, we should speak with the miko in charge of this temple. Consulting with a priest of Amaterasu would be an excellent way to get our bearings in this world, and perhaps she could be convinced to lend her gohei to another."

"I'll be jealous of you when you get annoying enough to get the dead to stand up just to get away from you. Or when you're a better shot than me. Until then, I don't see that happening." She strolled further into the training grounds and hunted out where they'd left the practice equipment earlier. "Be shocked to hear that he changed his mind at all. Ancient traditions usually aren't all that flexible." She frowned slightly harder than usual at that, before hefting the blunted practice axe and tossing a spear similarly made to Kerr.

A contract? Something magical, he had to assume at this point, given the emphasis on the word and the current situation. A fair one, garnering no debt, he said. Doubtful, but he wasn't in a strong negotiating position. And then that warmth suffused him. . . either he was actually dying, or whatever Augustus was doing was working. A miracle, as promised; nerves didn't heal, not like that. "Right." He inhaled, pulled his hands towards his body. . . and then let out a very high pitched phrase that was best left untranscribed. Pain shot through his entire body, and he immediately gave up any attempts at moving for the time being, just taking a deep breath and trying not to visibly be in pain. "At least the nerves work now."

Chen flew out ahead of the group, spinning a bit as she scouted forward and neatly weaving through a few more haphazard sprays of blueish orbs, that eventually fizzled or impacted on the trees nearby without much issue. She stayed below the canopy, and as the party rose (through their various methods) they could see a bit more clearly. For the most part, anyway; one of the trees may have grinned and waved, or it may have been due to the haze they had left behind closer to the forest floor. Their vantage point made it clear that they were giving off far more spores than what it initially seemed. Fortunately, though, the effects seemed to be wearing off. "Come on, hurry up! Fairies are always around during incidents, and that black and white girl has to be around here somewhere!" It wasn't clear if the catgirl was going to continue, as another spray of danmaku caused her to take a steep dive in evasion, a number of fairies rising up to take her place as she disappeared into the fog below. Objective: Investigate the forest! Notes: This will be a moving encounter. Enemies will continuously spawn; rewards and faster progression will happen if they are vanquished in a timely and stylish manner! Just watch out for the boss! Poison Mushroom A activates a card! For 2 turns, if it is struck by any melee attack, it will use a Paralytic Cloud! Poison Mushroom B activates a card! For 2 turns, if it is struck by any melee attack, it will use a Paralytic Cloud! Initiative Status

L7 dance

Amaterasu. Similar to her world, indeed. The old times, when gods roamed free and all humans paid them their due; the names and places were different in ways, but the fundamentals seemed to be much the same. This shrine, though, was a bit curious. It wasn't strange to see a place repurposed into a shrine, though by the looks of it, it had probably belonged to another before; she made a note to watch for irritable deities nearby. "Is the miko nearby? I did have a religious matter in need of discussion." Said matter being herself, of course. The others in the group, though accepting her divinity, didn't pay it any reverence; while she understood it, she did not like it. Furthermore, she still needed it.

"Sure." She turned to walk back to the grounds, then stopped to call back to Michi and Verden. "If you're gonna hunt down the rest of the group, make sure Dulcibella gets me something from the bowyer. Something heavy, preferably." Rhian continued forward, turning her attention to Kerr once more. "So, did you hit on him, too, or did you share some of your infinite wisdom?"

Kind tone or no, the content of his words was worrying, to say the least. "Um. . ." She wanted to think that he just meant they were accident-prone, but she wasn't nearly that naive. Heidrun shuffled into the elevator, shying away from the labcoated man as much as she could in the cramped space. "I suppose your line of work does sound dangerous." The healer was nervous about what she'd gotten herself into already. She hadn't expected what was described to be safe, but things sounded ominous. And after everything had been calming down for her, too. . .

"It is, yeah." Another world was, in fact, really far away. "I guess my parents were nicer than normal, too." She'd seen how some of the other homunculi were treated. Vat-grown soldiers, brought to maturity in weeks with a lifespan in months, but perhaps thankfully not smart enough to understand their circumstance. . . probably. And then there were the ones that were glorified mana batteries, powering other devices. She'd never talked to them, since they were kept in tanks, but something just felt wrong about them. She shivered at the thought. She'd been put through experiments and such, but for the most part she was treated like the human children. Still, now wasn't really the time to think of home, even if she was already starting to miss it a little. "Well, um, I should probably try to find my way back to the group now. . ." It also felt odd to just leave Moss behind in the swamp like this, especially since it sounded like most people wouldn't be nearly as willing to talk. ". . . Unless, um, you wanted to come with me? The other people are usually pretty nice, and the local humans think I'm a witch, so they won't attack me. I could just tell them you're my familiar or something, so they'll let you be, too."

Elias sighed, starting to brace himself for the pain and then remembering. "Nerve damage. Excellent." He took a moment to think - or maybe it wasn't long. It was starting to get a bit foggy, and the butler was far, far more afraid than he cared to admit. Magic of the gods? Not something he expected to encounter, and something he would have scoffed at normally, but it was difficult to deny the reality of his situation. Unless this was some sort of elaborate ruse, and he'd been drugged to numb his body, but he wasn't aware of any drug or toxin that would have that effect but not cloud his mind. "I feel like this is the part of the story where the hero makes a deal. . . he regrets later, but maybe I'm not thinking as clearly as I should." A near slip. He really was dying again, wasn't he? "I don't have much of a choice in the matter, do I? If you've got some sort of miracle, I'll do my best to repay you."

Elias would have shaken his head, had he the capacity. "Given we can still have this conversation, it's not as dire as I thought it would be." Unless that was an illusion of some kind, that wall of flame should have killed him on the spot as far as he could tell. "Is Priscilla okay?" He tried to keep his tone calm, his raspy voice still staying mostly in the register he wanted it to. Butlers were supposed to be unflappable, after all. "And. . . this might be a strange question, but considering the circumstances, I feel it might be appropriate. Am I alive, or is this some kind of strange afterlife?"

"All about his pride as a man, but he can't even apologize in person? Pff." The process of Rhian attempting to let it go (and largely failing) was visible on her expression, at least until she attempted to distract herself. "Verden volunteered himself as a punching bag for whatever reason but I'm not in the mood to train up someone basically fresh without breaking them, and Johanna would break me if she found out I did that to her healer. So mostly waiting for you to get back so I can swing something at your head instead."

Now that the immediate crisis was over and he'd worked on helping the nurse help who she could, it was time to talk to Leo again. He was tired, almost too tired; he was mostly running on fumes and anger at this point, having exerted himself so much through the siege and just afterward. At least the background magic of this world was close enough to seithr for it to have not burned him out via Drive overuse. . . He stalked up to Leo, who was looking annoyingly chipper as usual. "We need to talk. Now. You brushed me off earlier, but now you owe me."

K5 dance Lizaveta

Hiroki attacks the Silver Scorpion with a Giga Flare.

Justine does the dance of the people for Lizaveta

Rhian shrugged. "Probably the blacksmith or something. Or wherever they can grab provisions. Something tells me I should probably be the last one to visit those places." Generally didn't bode well for supplies if you beat the tar out of the one, well, supplying them, and with the amount of mouthing off that boy had done, something told her he wasn't the only one around here that felt that way. "Let's just wait for Kerr. Worst case scenario he brings the kid back and I hit him again. 'Cause, you know, I'm such a weak little woman. Pah."