Chevaleresse

Recall Satomi, then attack the Siege Ogre twice.

Rhian stalked forward, already drawing her bow as she moved. She didn't bother being subtle with her movement, because what was about to happen was a foregone conclusion. The mage, hearing the knight's approach, readied a spell, beginning to glow with arcane power - only for Rhian's bow to suddenly snap into position and let fly another arrow. The projectile struck the man in the chest, burying itself deep into his heart and lifting him off his feet. He flew backward until he collided with a tree, the arrow pinning him to it where he struck as he slumped over. "Anyone else wanna give me a try?"

"♪Wherever I go, you'll be with me, my first thought and my last. . . ♪"

K9 shoot

Mitsurugi... well, the expression was only faintly displeased, but it was the closest the goddess had ever come to making a face. "If you knew the denizens of the moon, you would instead be wondering why such invasions do not happen more often." She glanced in the direction of Iowa. Was carrying a dictionary with oneself a common practice? "I do not believe the outside world has successfully colonized the moon, however; else they would have made even more of a nuisance of themselves." Mitsurugi had to stop herself from sighing. Complaining about the Lunarians was a common pastime, and perfectly valid as a distraction, but all this discussion of Gensokyo was making her feel so many complicated things. Her gaze wasn't quite focused on Iowa, as she drifted off into her thoughts.

Lucine waved at the stranger hesitantly, not entirely certain how to respond. He was around her age, but, well, also an evil cultist of some variety. Were they really taking him with? "We should probably tell the villagers the cultists are gone, too." She wasn't going to voice her opinion of the boy quite yet; who knows, maybe they could actually get along?

Mitsurugi's nose crinkled slightly at the odor. Western alcohol, much coarser stuff than sake, and this seemed to be coarse by even those standards. Still, it would be rude to refuse the drink. . . and, if she was being honest with herself, it would provide a welcome distraction from the tengu's line of questioning, and Empi's rather humiliating statements to her "benefit." She gave a slight bow of thanks to Iowa, then took the flask, somewhat regretting not having a dish or anything similar. She took a slight sip of the liquor, and judging by the sensation of the stuff on the tongue, decided it was of a variety best not tasted at all as it went down. "I must admit to being more familiar with a duller sort of fairy. Though it seems that even many of the more intelligent ones are less tactful than they might think."

Hiroki made a face at the suggestion. Maybe the snake tongue should have tipped her off about the man eating rats. . . "There's a kitchen in all, um, the living sections. The one here was probably for, um, cooking food for room service, um, or something." She also wasn't really sure what the value of cooking an apple was by itself. Was she responsible for watching this guy to make sure he didn't set anything on fire? He didn't seem particularly responsible himself, and apparently thought that random fruit needed to be cooked to be eaten. . .

"Each section has, um, its own section. The only wood you, um, will find is rotten beds." That was. . . she wouldn't say asinine out loud, yet, but it was highly questionable to just start a fire in an enclosed room rather than finding the kitchen a few doors down. She took the orange and peeled back a section slightly, nibbling it. Fresh fruit wasn't terribly common where she was from, either, with the main source of food being Gluttony and its icy farms. Not that she'd never encountered it; at the very least, the gods spent plenty of money on catering. "What do, um, you have to cook, anyway?"

Hiroki had been about to reach out and take the fruit, but was beaten to the metaphorical punch. "There's a kitchen, um, in here somewhere." She glanced back toward Isobel and LOTUS. "Thank you for, um, the orange, anyway." She made a note to poke around this room later. Green, growing plants weren't an incredibly common sight around the barren Tempest, and it would be interesting to talk to Isobel about them at some point. LOTUS was interesting to her too; she wasn't sure if she wanted an AI with that much independence in the Knight, but it was possible he could help her improve the computer systems in her armor.

"I will be fine." She made no statements of when that state of being would actually come to pass, but it was technically not a lie. "As I said, it must be a similar, but different world." Not a tengu from the Gensokyo she loved, the one she failed to protect. She took another deep breath. It would not be befitting of a goddess to break down in tears in front of others. "These Trespassers," the emphasis on the word was tangible, "are beasts that feast on reality itself. They can take control of beings, as well, though how is beyond my knowledge."

"The gap witch? No, I do not know what became of her, but she did not tell me anything before the world went dark." Her face shifted, almost pinched. "Gensokyo was destroyed by the Trespassers. They took the Hakurei maiden by surprise, and everything else collapsed after her." The goddess took a deep breath. "Not only Gensokyo, but the entire world was devoured. I see it when I close my eyes." She shook her head once again. "You must be from a different place. A different Gensokyo, not the one I called my home." Another deep breath, this one more ragged.

"Gensokyo. . ." It was strange. The name held so much power for her, though most of her existence had been before the youkai preserve was founded. She shook her head slightly. "I see. To answer your question, Iowa, no; most of the group's number are humans." The tengu was from Gensokyo? That was impossible. "My name is Saigai Mitsurugi, to formally introduce myself once more." She frowned as she looked back to the tengu. "Masako, I must ask; how is it that you survived the destruction? I thought I was the only one who had managed to persist through that."

Hiroki was about to shake her head. . . but thinking on it, she really hadn't eaten much lately. She'd been too nervous to even think about trying to get anything down - and while she was still decompressing, to understate the issue, she really did need to eat. "I could, um, use something." She wasn't a particularly picky eater; despite what one might assume from her appearance, she was willing to try basically anything. Though she did have a proclivity for sweets that she would never admit aloud.

A tengu. Not something new, but certainly something unexpected - and one that seemed all too similar to the ones from her homeworld. Unless she was merely a superficially similar being, but she had the aura of a youkai like those she'd felt many times before. Before she could reply, though, another arrival, similarly familiar but perhaps less unexpected, appeared. "I believe Iowa and our tengu friend have both been recently called in the same way many people here have been. I did not summon them - such an act is outside my domain." Her mind kept returning to the tengu, but she had a question to answer. "And yes, I am a goddess - or, at least, that is what my fundamental nature continues to be." Even if I may be unworthy of the title. She leaned down slightly, reaching a hand toward the woman on the floor. "And you are a tengu?"

Hiroki, at the mention of her title, gave a slight wave. "The Hellfire Knight, um, is me." She recognized Isobel a bit, even if they hadn't spoken a whole lot. "I wasn't sure, um, who to go to for food."

"A tsukumogami is a kind of spirit born from things left behind; they are born when the one inherent to all objects grows powerful or restless enough to move about on its own. While I cannot say I have ever heard of one resulting from a wrecked ship, your case seems close enough for comparison. Most are. . . unfriendly, to humans." She had destroyed her fair share of them, ones that could not be brought around to the side of humanity, or at least convinced to find less lethal ways of attacking humans. "The multiverse is the container that holds all universes. If a country is a universe, then the multiverse would be the earth itself." She appreciated this Iowa's attitude. Mitsurugi felt much the same way, even if it was about different groups of people.

Hey, so I first wanted to say hello and welcome you to the forum. I'm the local mod for the section, so I figured I'd pop in and give you some advice. First thing's first, you probably want to at least glance over the pinned topics on the forum. Lots of people have written out a lot of helpful advice for newer RPers. Usually, when you start a new game, you want to gauge the interest for the game. You don't have to, but interest checks are usually pretty useful. You're going to want to describe some of the premise behind your game in the OOC. It's the first thing people are gonna look at when they see a new game posted. I see that you posted some information in the IC thread, but not much as to the actual premise of the game. Most people are going to want more information, and you're going to want a section for rules and the like established OOC. It's usually best to get some experience playing in games before you start hosting your own, so you have a better idea of how to handle various things OOC and IC.

Hiroki's discomfort was visible (and nearly audible, if you paid attention to her breathing.) Her memories being tampered with was a frightful thought. The fact that she couldn't remember anything about him other than the challenge was enough proof that it had happened; she'd been certain there was more to the conversation than that. Something leading up to it. She hadn't left the audience immediately, she ran into Grima and then. . . what? Arcturus had offered his challenge, but that couldn't have been all that happened. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on one's view and value of each particular topic, a distraction in the form of a particularly non-rigid member made itself known. Her face twisted into a grimace; Adam ranked somewhere between a particularly unappetizing dish and actual human waste on her list of things she would have liked to encounter up close. The news he brought was even less pleasant. "You could have at least shown up with good news," she grumbled, not really speaking with the intention to be heard. She didn't want to remember how agonizingly painful his attempt at defeating her had been, though how badly injured the aftermath had left him was something approaching payment for it. Hiroki took another breath, and spoke again. "That doesn't matter." She flinched, already anticipating the responses. "Ummm, we just need to, um, beat Cardinal. Everything, um, else after that doesn't matter, um, until afterward."

"I think I, um, saw someone carrying dirt into one, um, of the suites at one point." She didn't really know where Isobel was other than in the castle; she'd paid precious little attention to the rest of the group save trying to evade them. Ghost was gone, vanished in a way according to her name. Had she been separated from the group? Left voluntarily? Or something worse? She wouldn't be the first one to simply. . . disappear. It was concerning, but some feeling told her it wasn't as much to worry about as she might think. She pointed down the hall, making a vague gesture to one side. "They're in that direction, um, but I dunno if you'll actually find her, um, there."

Hiroki lifted her head up at Swag's compliment. She was doing her best to convince herself that "holding her own" was enough. It wasn't particularly working, but Hiroki was trying. It at least pulled her up far enough out of her wallowing to notice the rest of what was going on in the room - though Sain suddenly "turning on" his godly presence would likely have done so on its own. She wasn't sure what to think of Nastasia; the woman reminded her somewhat of her own parents. Perhaps, even, what her parents were trying to be, such that they didn't have the time for her. Underneath the cloak, her head shook. Now wasn't the time to dwell on that. Treat this like a fight. Your existence is riding on it even more than before. The god was missing something very important in his assessment. She took a breath, preparing to speak. A rush of static - not quite as harsh as usual due to the smaller noise - accompanied it, and with that, a thought. Everyone here likely knew who she was already. Swag had called her out by name (even if it was technically a boy's name); so what was the point? She reached up to her chin, pressed a button on the device strapped there, and pulled it off. Taking another deep breath, this one audible despite the lack of static, she pushed back her hood. "There's something, um, else you need to, um, know. A man, um, named Arcturus was there." She inwardly cursed at herself for the verbal tic, but pressed on. "He challenged me." She frowned. Had he done anything else? There was something important about what he had said, but every time she tried to think of it, her mind slid around it.

"They're just, um, called Trespassers. They're, um, not just regular people trespassing." She had assumed that much would be obvious, at least. "We haven't actually fought, um, one yet, but I think Tiamat was, um, possessed by one or something." She returned to Rory's question after answering the ones that seemed rather more important. Food? She was actually kinda hungry herself. . . Hiroki wasn't actually sure where the food was. She'd been mostly concerned about finding a space to relax without people around. . . and she supposed there were technically no humans around at the moment, other than herself. "Isobel gardens, um, I think. She might know. I don't, um, know where she is, though."

Tarja leaned slightly toward Flora, and. . . Well, she didn't seem to be deliberately stage-whispering, but her whisper was less than subtle, to say the least. "Psst. What are the metal tubes for? The ones they keep pointing around at people." She watched the entire proceedings with vaguely bemused interest, not entirely understanding what was going on. "And why don't they want us to go past, anyway?"

Hiroki had summoned and then desummoned her mech on the newcomer's arrival and apparent lack of hostility. She'd figured that would occasion more of a comment, but they seemed to be too busy exchanging riddles and biographical info to notice. Odd, given the massive death machine was what it was, but that actually ranked fairly low among the odd things that had occurred in this room. After a few moments of consternation, she realized that 6D had asked her a question. "Um, not usually like this, um, but yes." She retreated back from the group somewhat, instinctively. "People usually show, um, up in groups, so there, um, might be more."

"Running through trees I can handle, but splitting up like a bunch of idiots I can't. Watch your damn flanks."